The Lake Superior Brewery as it appeared in 1891. (Image: Scott Vesterstein.)
On this day in Duluth in 1881, construction began on Michael Fink’s Lake Superior Brewery on the East 600 block of Superior Street. Fink had purchased the brewery in 1875 from Nicholas Decker, who had purchased it from Sidney Luce ten years earlier—Luce had financed the brewery in 1857, with J. Gottlieb Busch doing the brewing with water taken from a nearby creek later named Brewery Creek. That same year Fink, a city alderman, also hired August Fitger to be his brewmaster; less than six months later Fitger and Percy Anneke bought the brewery from Fink. One local newspaper reported that, “Ground was yesterday broken for Alderman Fink’s new brewery. The site is on Superior Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue East. The building is to be seventy by seventy, three stories high and veneered with brick… Mr. Fink’s intention is to put up a building that should be second to none in the state for the purpose intended and will furnish it with all the improvements known to modern breweries. The building is to be ready for occupancy about the middle of November. And to accomplish this, a large force of men will be put on and the work of construction rushed forward with a whip.” Read about Duluth’s beer-brewing history here.
Yep, and I have since corrected the date–thanks.
And as far as beer is concerned, I agree with you and Augustus as well!
I think you meant he left home in 1857. Just a coincidence I guess but an interesting one.
I looked up Adolphus Busch on Wikipedia.
However, throughout his life, he referred to his beer as “that slop”[3] and instead drank wine.
LOL. I agree with Adolphus about his beer.
D: Likely not. Augustus Busch, the German-born co-founder of Anheuser-Busch, did not leave for America until 1857, the same year Gottlieb Busch and three of his friends started their brewery in Duluth as a way to get through the Panic of 1857. — Tony D.
J. Gootlieb Busch. Any relation to Adolphus Busch?